Proflora makes a colourful comeback

Proflora award winners featuring Pablo Bazzanni in front showing the grand champion prize his company (Plazoleta Bazzani) received.

In celebration of its 30th anniversary, Proflora 2023 was, in the words of many attendees, ‘the best edition ever’. The buzz around the show was positive, vibrant, and enthusiastic. Despite challenges, the Colombian flower industry is in good standing: exports are increasing yearly, hitting the U$ 2 billion mark in 2022.

Colombian flowers currently reach nearly 100 destinations around the world. But perhaps more evident at the show was the happy feeling of meeting in person again after four years. In 2021 – strictly speaking the 30th anniversary – the show had to be cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and as one exporter expressed, “doing business virtually or in small gatherings is just never the same”.

Over three hundred exhibitors, 6,500+ buyers, and visitors from 60 countries attended the four-day show at Bogotá’s Corferias convention centre between 4 and 7 October 2023.

Inauguration and awards

A bouquet for every occasion.

The Proflora 2023 opening ceremony was less formal, happening right in the beating heart of the fair’s grounds instead of the usual auditorium. Asocolflores president Augusto Solano delivered a short speech welcoming exhibitors and visitors. After he had referenced the show’s 30th anniversary, a group of local drummers/ dancers got everyone into the right mood.

The main exhibition hall was packed with a dazzling array of flowers, ranging from double-flowered Alstroemerias and pollen-free double lilies to fragrant Lathyrus, to giant Ranunculus, to an incredible range of filler flowers and cut foliage.

Traditional flowers such as roses, carnations, and Chrysanthemums did not lag behind, with every imaginable shape, hue and presentation. The variety seemed endless, and clearly, Colombia has come a long way concerning diversification.

An award-filled ceremony also took place on day one, recognising the best flowers, people, and practices behind them.

In the cut flowers category, the jury handed out awards to producers and breeders, and these, in turn, were split according to flower type (standard and spray roses, standard and spray carnations, Alstroemerias, fillers, foliage, and others).

Plazoleta Bazzani was the top awardee, winning the Champion Producer award (“category fillers”) and the Proflora Grand Champion Award; Guaqueta Trading took home the Grand Champion breeder award (category “others”).

In the particular flower types, SB Talee received the Champion Breeder award for a wide range of carnation varieties; Flores La Gaitana received wide recognition as a producer of high-quality carnations. Flores El Capiro and Flores de Oriente won many distinctions for their Chrysanthemums. Other noted winners were Alexandra Farms with their scented English-style garden roses,

Flores Funza is distinguished on several flower types and Ball SB for its summer flowers and fillers.

Recognising the people behind Colombian floriculture

Camilo Bleier (on the right, at the end) and his team, with the various awards obtained by Gaitana Farms.

Sustainability prizes were also awarded, mainly recognising efforts made by flower companies to foster social and working welfare and encourage best management practices with respect to occupational health and protection of the environment, not just at their farms but in townships and communities with whom they interact.

In addition, several members of the Colombian flower sector were acknowledged, for example, Lucie de Velez, the late wife of Ernesto Velez from Flores Suasuque, who devoted her life to improving employees’ social and life conditions. Her programme “Cultivating Peace in the Family”, launched in the 1990s, was adopted by the whole industry. It has benefited thousands of workers and their families by providing, among others, tools for managing conflict.

Cristina Uricoechea, the driving force behind every edition of Proflora since 1991, and her colleague Mónica Herrera were recognised for their sterling work.

The Next-Gen/ Young Grower of the Year award went to Elkin Farfán, planning director of Phytotec SAS, a family business producing fillers, summer flowers and foliage. Elkin automatically qualifies for the 2024 AIPH Young International Grower of the Year competition.

Exhibitors – consolidation and diversification

Gigantic ranunculus in soft pink.

Variety and diversification are continuing trends in Colombian floriculture. Not only was innovation palpable in every booth – double flowers, short, medium, long, and very long stems, natural colour variations unimaginable some years ago – but the sheer number of flower species offered was very impressive.

Marigolds, larkspurs, Tweedia, Lathyrus, and an extensive array of greens and fillers. Even “Inirida flowers” (two species, Guacamaya suberba and Schoenocephalium teretifolium) are unusual, everlasting flowers that come straight from the Amazon basin, where they are grown expertly by indigenous communities.

The same can be said for flower use and presentation: the most comprehensive array of consumer-ready bouquets, painstakingly designed and arranged; immortalised flowers, especially roses, to last for years; and flowers tinted to taste, in particular colours for special occasions, glitter, speckles or whatever the customer asks for.

For exhibitors, huge booths from very large companies, such as Elite Flower or Sunshine Bouquet, which now consolidate thousands of hectares in production, formed in Colombia over the past decade and seemed to occupy a large proportion of the floor. But at the other end, there was the presence of the small producers’ directorate, growers, for the most part, located along the coffee growing region, who specialise in tropical flowers and foliage.

Book launch – 50 years of Colombian floriculture

Rodolfo La Rota delivered a speech during the ‘Colombia Blooming – fifty years of Colombian floriculture’ launch, which was published in time for Proflora.

Proflora ’23 also set the stage for a book launch, ‘Blooming Colombia – Fifty Years of Colombian Floriculture’, edited by Rodolfo La Rota of Propagar Plantas. Asocolflores was founded 50 years ago. The year 1973 also marks La Rota’s first cut rose harvest and export shipments. “Colombian floriculture is a success story that deserves to be told,” he said, as an active Asocolflores member since 1981. “I have witnessed an important part of the history of the association, hand in hand with that of Colombian floriculture. I thus decided to write this book as a homage to a sector that has allowed me to live so many vital and fertile years”. The book provides a detailed overview of how the flower industry developed in Colombia and the many hurdles flower exporters have faced and achievements. The narrative is framed within a historical, socio-political perspective and highlights the main protagonists of the industry.

La Rota concluded, “The success of floriculture would not have been possible if flower entrepreneurs – overwhelmed by ever constantly arising urgent matters— had not come together to jointly consider the best options to spur the long-term development of this sector. This book also pays homage to that collective.”

The original has been published in Spanish, and the English version, currently in the final preparation stage, will be available before the end of the year. More information: info@propagarplantas.com